Attempts have long been made to rationalise the process of garment manufacture by using more and more sophisticated technical equipment.
British patent GB861.972, published on 1 Mar. 1961 in the name of A. LEVY shows how the traditional measuring by a tailor of the person who is to wear the garment can be replaced by a photographic session. At least 3 photographs of the person standing on a pivoting platform are taken in at least three different directions in front of a white background marked with perpendicular lines. A motor drives the platform, and the shutter of the camera and the lighting are synchronised with this rotation.
The device disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,885,844, published on 12 Dec. 1989 in the name of J. CHUN, is based on a similar principle but makes more use of the possibilities of digital processing of the signals from the video camera used. The person wears a set of bands constituting a mesh, the image of which is converted by a computer into a “wire mesh” representation of the body. These data are transmitted by telecommunication means to a remote manufacturing workshop and control an adjustable mannequin on site. Consequently the workshop has a true copy of the body of the person in order to adjust the garment.
More recently, other methods and systems have made use of the developments in the technology of synthetic imaging in order to create a virtual mannequin from data selected from a morphological databank and corresponding to a particular profile.
One approach of this kind is described in international patent application PCT/EP01/05480 filed on 11 May 2001 in the name of the applicant of the present application. The key parameters of categorising the human body profile (ethnic group, sex, stature, weight, measurements, attitude, and posture of the body) stored in the database are retrieved following a morphological search directed to the target population.
Virtual reality techniques applied to the field of clothing make it possible nowadays to create a veritable “virtual changing room”.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,850,222, published on 15 Dec. 1998 in the name of D. CONE, describes in particular a method and system for merging the data representing a three-dimensional human body model obtained from a standard model stored in a database and produced from the measurements of a person, with the data representing a two-dimensional garment model. The measurements can be transmitted by electronic mail. The result is a simulation of the person wearing the garment on the computer screen.
The method and device described in international patent application WO 00.77744 in the name of the company ZENIMAX MEDIA, published on 21 Dec. 2000, attempt to take a further step into realism as the virtual mannequin wearing the garment is animated and is able to move in several types of environment such as a discotheque, a beach, etc., so that it is possible to judge the effect of the garment on the person in these situations. The system may be installed on a local computer or on a central computer which is accessible by multiple users via a communication network such as the internet. Garment models appearing in a catalogue may be transmitted periodically to the customer.
However, the various known methods and systems for computer viewing of a garment have at least two limitations:    a) the oldest of them offer limited interactivity,    b) The more recent ones are simulations produced entirely by software which may therefore be somewhat lacking in realism.
The device described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,885,844 makes it possible to automatically create a real mannequin on which the garment is tried out; the realism is therefore perfect. However, it is not possible to have an exchange of opinions as to the fit of the garment with its intended wearer, who is not on site.
The systems described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,885,844 and WO00.77744 are totally interactive but do not appear to have any means for perfectly simulating the wearing of the garment by the virtual mannequin.
It is therefore apparent from the documents cited above that methods and devices for viewing, storing, and transmitting a garment model over a computer network are known from the prior art. However, they do not appear to offer all the desired characteristics to enable them to be used in a context of designing and manufacturing garment models on a large scale requiring the use of a number of actors which are very demanding in a competitive environment.